Thnx Pinterest & U: Growth Chart

A couple of weeks ago many of you voted in the first Thnx Pinterest & U – a monthly project that Thnx Pinterest readers select for me to complete – and the winner was the Growth Chart! I did have the chart complete by the end of January, but have been slow about getting it posted, I hope to be more prompt in February. I am still figuring out where to hang the chart so will post an updated picture when it has it’s permanent location.

Inspiration

Loved

517 Creations. This blog has AMAZING step by step instructions for creating this project – I referenced it a lot and followed it pretty closely. Below you will find some additional tips I found helpful.

Staining wood is easy! I had never stained wood, so I was a bit intimidated, but it turned out to be really easy – just rub on with an old cloth and then rub off! In total, it took about 10 minutes to stain the whole board – as you can see below I had a bit of help. Note: disposable rubber gloves are great to prevent getting stain on your fingers.

Hemlock is beautiful. After looking at all of the 1x8x6 wooden boards in Lowes I decided to go with the Hemlock. It was a bit more expensive than some of the other woods but the grain and color was beautiful. Because the wood was so nice I only needed to use 1 coat of Natural Cabot Stain.

Learned

Painters tape is a crafters best friend. If you are going to make your own growth chart I would highly recommend using painters tape it will save you time!

Use tape to ensure your growth chart marks will all be the same length. I had two lengths (2 inches for 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and foot marks the rest are 1 inch) so used two pieces of tape running the whole length of the board. After marking all of the 1 inch marks with a permanent marker I removed the first row of tape, then did the rest of the longer marks and removed the last row of tape.

Put tape on the edge of your ruler to prevent getting marker all over your ruler. Also, a ruler that is 1 inch wide makes it really easy to do the spacing on your ruler. Draw one line, then line up the bottom edge of your ruler with the freshly drawn line and draw the next line – just be sure to check your spacing at every foot.

Use tape to keep the numbers in alignment. Similar to above I put a piece of tape spanning the length of the board and then placed the printouts of my numbers (200 pt bold Century font) on the line. I traced the numbers with a ball point pen which left a mark on the wood, then I used a permanent marker to outline and color in the numbers.

Thnx

Thanks to everyone who voted! I appreciate your support more than you know and I’m looking forward to seeing your pick for the February Thnx Pinterest & U which will be coming soon

Thanks 517 Creations! This is one of my new favorite blogs not just because the instructions for this project were so awesome but for all of the amazing future Thnx Pinterest project ideas.